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RE: nuclear fuel fire consequences



What a wonderful reason for the US to reprocess spent nuclear fuel (or at

very least, dispose of it at a more permanent facility) rather than having

utilities store it on-site--in a way, it seems kinda odd coming from the

anti-nuclear community--statements like this (which I realize are actually

aimed at exaggerating and magnifying potential NPP safety concerns) could

actually be used to promote technically sound radioactive waste management

efforts.  Thanks!



Greg Gibbons





-----Original Message-----

From: Norman Cohen [mailto:ncohen12@comcast.net]

Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2002 10:33 AM

To: UNPLUG Salem Campaign; JerseyShoreNuclearWatch@yahoogroups.com;

Know_Nukes@yahoogroups.com; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

Subject: nuclear fuel fire consequences









Raymond Shadis wrote:



> FYI- I'm reserving comment pending a look at the referenced study but it

appears to revive 1960's meltdown consequence estimates in the report

Wash-740 and the Brookhaven (National Lab) studies that estimated an area

the size of Pennsylvania might have to abandoned. In an NRC Comission

Briefing on the Staff Technical Study on Spent Fuel Pool Accident Risk,

Commissioner Diaz asked me if I thought the risk of a spent fuel pool fire

was greater than that of a reactor meltdown. Ironical. ain't it?

>

> Ray

> Raymond Shadis

> Staff Advisor

> New England Coalition

> 207-882-7801

>

> NRC study warns of 500-mile radiation spread

>

> By ROGER WITHERSPOON

> THE JOURNAL NEWS

> (Original publication: November 10, 2002)

>

> A catastrophic meltdown in the spent fuel pool of a nuclear power plant

could cause fatal, radiation-induced cancer in thousands of people as far as

500 miles from the site, according to a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

study.

>

> The analysis of spent fuel pool meltdowns also states that millions of

people within such a 500-mile zone might have to be evacuated for periods

ranging from 30 days to one year and that people living within 10 miles of a

nuclear plant, such as Indian Point in Buchanan, might never be able to

return to their homes.

>

> It also cites the potential for "prompt fatalities" from radiation

poisoning that would occur in areas close to a plant site, where many

radioactive particles would be expected to fall.

>

> The extent of possible radiation damage described in the NRC documents is

far more severe than anything that federal, Westchester County or Indian

Point officials have disclosed in public forums or written statements mailed

to thousands of residents in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and Orange

counties.

>

> The agency's assessments are contained in a special report prepared by

experts within the NRC and the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque,

N.M., in October 2000 that was designated as an official NRC planning

regulation in February 2001. A copy of the report was obtained by The

Journal News.

>

> The study has been criticized by nuclear industry representatives who say

it reflects a worst-case scenario based on unrealistic assumptions and

ignores the effectiveness of plant safety systems.

>

> Michael Slobodien, director of emergency programs at the site for Entergy

Nuclear Northeast, which owns Indian Point 2 and 3, said even if an accident

did occur at Indian Point's spent fuel pool, the facility had the ability to

control the situation and prevent the release of radiation into the

atmosphere.

>

> "This is a generic report and is not applicable to Indian Point,"

Slobodien said. "It neglects the Indian Point design features, and I cannot

accept the premise of a meltdown and fire in the spent fuel pool when it

comes to Indian Point. You cannot set up a case where it can happen at

Indian Point."

>

> Sandia laboratories maintain a computer simulation system that enables the

NRC to predict the possible spread of radiation from any of the nation's 103

nuclear plants based on their location, geography and area population

densities and the prevailing or seasonal weather patterns within hundreds of

miles of the sites. Damage assessments - including the number of prompt

fatalities, long-term cancers, affected population centers and durations of

evacuations for specific areas - can then be estimated for any region of the

country. Within 500 miles of Indian Point, there are nearly 82 million

people living in the United States and 11 million in Canada.

>

> The report provides the basis for any future NRC regulations on evacuation

needs, safety requirements and insurance and compares the possible damage

caused by a spent fuel pool meltdown with that of a meltdown in a fully

operational nuclear reactor. It was developed to show the NRC what types of

problems could occur in spent fuel pools when nuclear plants are shut down,

at which point no new fuel rods would be placed in the pools, and how long

they might pose a danger from a meltdown and fire.

>

> The potential spread of contamination cited in the report far exceeds the

10-mile zone the nation's nuclear plants currently utilize in developing

emergency evacuation plans. NRC and Indian Point officials said the

evacuation plans are intended to deal only with short-term radiation

poisoning, which is not likely to occur outside the 10-mile zone.

>

> The report was pulled from the NRC's public database following the Sept.

11, 2001, terrorist attacks because, agency spokesman Neil Sheehan said, "if

a terrorist decided to attack any plant in the U.S., not just Indian Point,

that is information about what fatalities it could cause, and the exact

knowledge of that could be very advantageous to them."

>

> The information was returned to the database in April, however, because it

is an official regulation governing spent fuel pool operations and must be

accessible to plant operators.

>

> The report states that analysts did not base their findings on "events due

to sabotage. No established method exists for estimating the likelihood of a

sabotage event. Nor is there a method for analyzing the effect of security

provisions on that likelihood." Instead, analysts examined various accident

scenarios, ranging from worker mishaps to plane crashes into a spent fuel

pool building. The report concluded that while the probability of such

accidents is extremely low, the impact of a meltdown would be enormous.

>

> The protection and disposition of spent fuel is a national problem. Every

two years, plants such as Indian Point replace a third of the nearly 100

tons of fuel used in their reactors with new fuel. The spent fuel at Indian

Point 2 and 3 is stored in pools of water 40 feet deep, and both are nearing

their storage limit. The federal government is developing a permanent

repository for spent fuel under Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which is expected

to open around 2010.

>

> The uranium fuel used in reactors has a zirconium coating that permits

nuclear reactions to occur but helps prevent the fuel from literally burning

up and being dispersed into the atmosphere. The cooling water in the reactor

and the spent fuel pools keep the temperature low enough that there is no

danger of fire.

>

> The internal heat of the nuclear fuel drops over time, and after about

five years spent fuel rods can be removed from the pools and stored in dry

casks that are air cooled. It had been thought by plant operators that there

was little chance of a zirconium fire in fuel that was out of a reactor for

at least five years. As a result, nuclear plant operators were not required

to have emergency evacuation plans for events involving spent fuel pools,

even though the pools hold hundreds of tons of radioactive material, far

more than is used in the reactors. The NRC was considering industry requests

to reduce insurance requirements for pools containing only older fuel.

>

> But the report states that a zirconium fire still can occur 30 years after

fuel rods are removed from a reactor, as significant an accident as a

worst-case reactor-core meltdown, and that the danger of cancer-causing,

radioactive contamination would not significantly decrease at least for that

long.

>

> The report assesses the effects of a fuel fire that would be triggered if

water were completely or partially drained from spent fuel pools.

Cesium-137, which is among the radioactive particles that could be released

into the atmosphere, is the primary cause of long-term cancers, according to

the NRC study. In that regard, cesium-137 is more significant than

radioactive iodine. Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and Orange county

officials have distributed pills to residents living within 10 miles of

Indian Point as a possible protection against thyroid cancer induced by the

radioactive iodine.

>

> Current evacuation plans approved by the NRC for Indian Point are based on

the premise that it would take several hours or days to reach the stage

where a fuel fire would release radiation into the atmosphere. The agency's

2000 report states that a zirconium fire could erupt and begin releasing

radiation within two to four hours after water was completely or partially

drained from a spent fuel pool.

>

> Charles Tinkler, a senior adviser in the NRC's office of research and

co-author of the report's section on meltdown consequences, said the NRC

studied the effects of contamination at Chernobyl in Ukraine, which suffered

a catastrophic meltdown in 1986. There is a permanent exclusion zone

extending about 35 miles around the site of the former reactor. A permanent

exclusion zone also would be needed following such an accident at Indian

Point, Tinkler said.

>

> "I am not sure it would be comparable to the same radius as Chernobyl,"

Tinkler said in an interview. "We would predict that persons would be

excluded from that property for the duration if they live within the

10-mile, emergency-planning zone."

>

> Tom Hinton, a radiation ecologist at the University of Georgia's Savannah

River Ecology Lab, said the extent of contamination from a meltdown depends

on how high the contaminants are pushed into the atmosphere, local weather

conditions and the type of radioactive isotopes involved.

>

> "At Chernobyl," he said, "there was contamination spread around the world,

though the majority of it was within 300 kilometers or so. Contamination

depends on local weather conditions, specifically rain. If a (radiation)

cloud passes over you and it is not raining, you will not get as much

contamination as if it were raining. Rain scavenges contaminants out of the

air and deposits them locally. That is the reason for many hotspots that

occurred around Europe after the Chernobyl accident."

>

> Some radiological isotopes, such as plutonium, will stay where they land,

Hinton said, while others travel through the environment contaminating

plants and waterways.

>

> Officials in the four counties around Indian Point conducted a mock

evacuation drill of the 10-mile zone on Sept. 24 under the auspices of the

NRC and Federal Emergency Management Agency, which certifies emergency

evacuation plans.

>

> Officials at the time said radiation leaking from the reactor would

dissipate after about five miles and the evacuation plans would protect the

public from any harmful radiation.

>

> Though the drill did not entail the scope of accident studied by the NRC

and Sandia, Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano last June hosted a

briefing for about 80 municipal and school officials, where they were

assured there was little danger of contamination if a meltdown occurred in

the reactor. Herschel Specter, a consultant for Entergy, said that 90

percent of county residents were "not at radiological risk. They may be

terrified, but there is no danger."

>

> Specter said a massive release of radiation would be of short duration and

do little damage.

>

> Slobodien acknowledged last week that the emergency planning zone was

designed to protect the public from acute health effects, but that "the

latent effects of cancer can occur far beyond that."

>

> Concurring in that assessment was James Lee Witt, former director of FEMA

under President Clinton. During his tenure, Witt approved the effectiveness

of emergency plans for residents living near each of the nation's nuclear

power plants. In an interview last week, Witt said none of the plans deals

with protecting residents from long-term radiation effects from a reactor or

spent fuel pool accident.

>

> "If you are dealing with a meltdown at that level," Witt said, "you

potentially have a threat to deal with that could reach beyond the 10 miles.

I was aware of it. But our task has been to look at the emergency

preparedness in a 10-mile radius, and that is what we were looking at."

>

> Witt, now a private emergency management consultant, was given an $800,000

contract by Gov. George Pataki to examine the effectiveness of the emergency

plans for the 10 miles around Indian Point. His report is due in December.

>

> David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety analyst for the Union of Concerned

Scientists in Washington, D.C., said that the argument that radiation

couldn't go more than five miles or so "was never accurate."

>

> "If they put the correct information out there and involved the American

public and got a majority of people to agree that only those 10 miles need

to be protected, that would be one thing," he said. "But for a small group

of people to make a decision behind closed doors is what the Kremlin used to

do, isn't it?"

>

> Tinkler, who worked on the NRC report, said the study's estimates of

possible fatal cancers was based on the conservative premise that a spent

fuel pool fire would release up to nine times as much cesium-137 as the

meltdown at Chernobyl, and that any dose of radiation above the normal

background level for a region could induce cancer at some point.

>

> "It means our figures ... represent the upper bounce," Tinkler said. "But

it is not beyond the physical limits of the material involved. It provides

us an outside limit for planning."

>

> A decision on how many millions of people might have to be evacuated

following a real spent fuel pool fire, he said, would depend on the cost of

evacuation, and what is perceived to be an acceptable death rate.

>

> "The decision would depend on what level of radiation the government

decided people could receive without a significant health effect," Tinkler

said. "That means some acceptable increase in the risk of cancer."

>

> Send e-mail to Roger Witherspoon

>

> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>

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>

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